The temperature of the captain's office definitely dropped by several degrees. The chill in the air was palpable.
Beckett sat on her chair looking off in the distance. At nothing in particular, just looking out the windows toward the bullpen
"Beckett…"Castle tries to start a conversation
She simply holds her hand up toward his face "Can you excuse me for a minute?"
When Castle does not move, she looks at his face and firmly adds "PLEASE?"
The two men stand and exit her office. When the door closes Castle turns toward the CIA agent "What did I do? I mean, what was my job and how did I get involved with this group? And why don't I remember anything abut them?"
Agent Gray stops and looks back at Captain Beckett's door that is now not only closed but the blinds have all been closed hiding from view whatever she is doing at the moment
"There are a lot of empty pages surrounding this group and its operations. Since they have been operating using drug money and not spending money from the GAO there has been virtually no capital oversight. They have been keeping their actions very well hidden from view. We do know that some of the missions they performed were constructive and helped…but we also know some were not"
"Not good things like the attack in the warehouse? The teams trying to kill Russian prostitutes" That kind of bad stuff?"
"We have it on good authority that that group of attackers represented the majority of their black ops squad"
"If this is a team or group, surely there is a leader. Someone is running the operation. There has to be a single individual. Someone at the top" Castle comments
"That is the person we are having the most difficulty locating. It appears they are not in the higher levels of the CIA infrastructure"
Castle stops then comments "My step mother, Rita, told Beckett that this was an analyst. Could that explain why you are having trouble locating them?"
"Your STEP mother? Who is this woman?"
"My father evidently married her some time after I was born. She said that they see one another rarely due to the job"
"Seeing each other at any time would be near to impossible. Intelligence assets are normally not allowed to even know one another, let alone become romantically involved with one another. They need to avoid emotional connections at all costs. Emotions can get you killed"
In the mean time, Castle is looking at Kate's closed door wondering what is happening inside her private space. The space that is even new to her and he has yet to be allowed inside for any meaningful events or time
His train of thought is broken by the sound of Kevin Ryan and Javier Esposito entering the area from the elevator lobby "Hey Castle. What are you doing here?" Ryan asks "And where is Beckett?"
Rick points toward her door "Kate is in there. We have had some issues come up"
"What kind of issues?" Esposito asks "did you do something?"
"No! I don't think so. I do not remember doing anything"
"What do you mean you don't remember doing anything? What did you do to her Castle" Esposito is pointing toward the captain's office
"Javi, I have some missing time in my history going back before I started following her that we are working on filling in"
"OH! Is that your excuse? You have holes in your memory? That is lame bro"
The voice of another man intercedes in the conversation "Rick needs to be given a little slack, Master Sergeant Esposito. He has some history with The Company. He is an important member of that community"
The group looks up to see a man entering the bullpen.
Esposito looks at the new man walking up to the group "Who are you and how do you know my rank. That was kept secret"
Jake Garrett answers the inquiry of the Hispanic detective "I know all about your prior life. I know you were the squad leader. I know about your duties in Special Forces. I am former Delta and several of my team are Seals and Delta. So it is not that difficult to get the information I need"
Esposito is still not convinced "What do you mean he has history?" pointing a finger at Castle
"Rick saved my team more than once but he got trapped into an operation that was so far off the books we are still trying to piece together the story"
Jake looks at the group standing around then finally speaks directly at one of the men "Agent Gray, I have been given clearance to read in everyone here" he points around the circle
"Very well" the CIA agent responds "But we need to take this inside the conference room"
"Agreed" Jake answers as he points toward the door "If you will all join me?"
Once they have all entered the room and the doors are closed and shades drawn the man that Rick though was retired from the business begins speaking
"Rick, we need to thank all your friends in the…shall we say other side of the law, for their actions earlier. They setup a trap for the hit team and drew all of them into a no-win ambush"
"Why did they do that?" Esposito is still questioning the situation "Why did the hit squad show up at the warehouse?"
"It seems the members of Lockstat thought that a Russian prostitute was giving up information to the police about drug running and sex slavery and Vinnie and the family let it be known that there was a meeting planned with the FBI"
Agent Gray continues "But your friends set up a trap. There were members of every crime family in New York and Jersey waiting"
"Why would they do that?" Esposito questions
"The LockStat group were messing in the families business and causing them some problems" Jake continues "Not to mention they had used Vinnie to help cover up Castle's disappearance on his wedding day and Vinnie thinks or Rick as a friend"
"So my kidnapping was done by these people?" Rick asks
"Yes" Jake answers "In fact the two hit squad that Vinnie left tied up for us were the very ones who ran you off the road and drug you from your car"
Esposito asks the next question "How did you get that from these men? They are trained operatives. They would never give up their command no matter what you do to them"
Jake answers the question "Master Sergeant, there are methods of retrieving information that are not well known. Let's just say these two would give up their grandmothers"
Silence will the room for a few moments then Esposito looks at Castle "Are you telling me that Castle is a spook?"
Agent Gray looks at Jake "Let me just say he is a special operations officer and he has been of great service over the years"
Then Jake finishes "But the same group that he and I worked for had a darker side and when they decided that his services could be used to their benefit, he was tricked into helping them"
"How was he tricked?" Ryan finally speaks
"Someone from his past. Someone he knew and trusted brought him in and then trained him" Jake answers "Then when Rick knew it was evil and tried to get out, they wiped his memory and sent him packing"
Javier Esposito, who never believed Castle's story about the wedding disappearance, asks a tough question "What about the wedding? What happened to Beckett's wedding?"
"The two men said that they were ordered to grab Castle before the wedding and take him to a safe house out on Long Island. They drugged him and left him there for the next group to pick him up. They do not know where he went from there"
Even though Rick was listening to the conversation explaining much of what happened to him in the past and the wedding kidnapping is more concerned about his wife. After she threw him and Agent Gray out, she locked her office and closed the blinds.
He has all kinds of thoughts going thru his mind about what she thinks after being told that he is a member of the LockStat group. Even though he is not a part of their criminal activities he is truly worried what Kate might think or do
He sees her door open and she steps into the bullpen to find it empty. She looks around the floor toward the break room then the conference room. She walks briskly toward the closed room. When she reaches the door, she pulls it open with force
"Castle, will you come with me?"
Rick cannot tell what is going on in her mind by her facial expression but he does not think is is very good. He stands, looks around the room, the walks out the door following Beckett
When they arrive at her office, she closes the door behind her and turns the lock
Castle spins on his heels "Kate…PLEASE! I promise I had no part in your mother's death and I promise that I never knowingly did anything illegal…and I had no advance knowledge of my kidnapping from the wedding…"
She holds her hand up to his face as she approaches him
"Castle! SHUT UP and kiss me"
I am trying to finish this story but it won't let me. It keeps going and going all by itself.
It must be that bunny